Besides lentils, beans, fasels, and other kinds of vegetables, there is
an infinite variety of melons, gourds, and cucumbers, brought from
England, Italy, Germany, and Africa, into Paraguay, which, dressed in
various ways, serve excellently both to fill the stomach and delight the
palate. The curuguà, a kind of gourd, is of great size. Hanging from its
stalk, it creeps like ivy along the neighbouring hedges and trees. This
gourd is a by no means unpleasant dish, and a celebrated medicine for
persons afflicted with the tertian ague. After being kept at home for
many months, it fills the room with a delightful fragrance, which virtue
the seeds likewise possess. Melons of almost too great sweetness grow
every where here, but, unless plucked as soon as ripe, immediately get
bitter and are filled with most offensive bugs. Water-melons are very
plentiful and of great size. The soil of St. Iago del Estero, which is
sandy, produces exceedingly sweet and enormously large melons. Their
pulp, which is sometimes red, sometimes yellow, and always cold, greatly
refreshes the mouth when parched with heat, and the other parts of the
body, without injuring the stomach. They will keep great part of a year,
if suspended in any open airy place. Rainy weather is extremely
injurious to the young melons, for they absorb so much water that they
either burst before they are ripe, or when ripe quickly putrify.